Tampa!

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Needless to say the last few days have been a whirlwind - mostly trying to get work stuff caught up at work. Finally I reached that point, like everyone does - where it just is, what it is. The world will continue to spin on it's axis just fine.

Steve worked a ridiculously long day, 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM. That's just wrong.

Our plane left at 6:00 AM so we got up at 3:00. I was working on 5 hours sleep and I have no idea how little sleep Steve got. This would explain our 3 hours deep sleep nap this afternoon in our lovely hotel room.

We ate breakfast at JFK, then fired up our laptops in a wireless hot spot, looking like the power couple we were meant to be. I caught up on reading some Yahoo group emails, which I've been saving for days for just this occasion.

We flew Jet Blue, which provides a TV for every seat. Between Rochester & JFK, my headphones worked like crap, so I watched VH1 Classic without sound. (I barely recognized Keith Richards, from back in the day - wow!) Nothing else interested me at that hour. Between JFK & Tampa, I received every channel just fine - except for HGTV. Life just isn't fair, is it?? I did find Martha Stewart, but proceeded to sleep through it anyway. I did wake up once to see Martha boogying to The Temptations. I think it was the Temptations.

Both flights were uneventful. Steve loves to fly so he gets the window seat. Which means I get stuck in the middle seat. What I do for love.

We reserved a compact car but naturally they wanted to upgrade us for $5/day and we went for it. Good thing, because instead of a Yugo (I kid) we're stylin' in a sporty white Monte Carlo. I hadn't even started the engine when I said to Steve this new car was going to spoil me very quickly. I'm very happy with my 11 year old Saturn but gotta love the remote access thingy. It's a nice ride, for sure.

We're staying a hotel that's way too ritzy for us, but it's kind of fun. I was expecting the folded-into-a-point toilet paper - but a fluffy flower tissue?? How cool is that?

Steve and I were saying this is only our 5th vacation together - not counting staying with family in the Adirondacks - but going out of town vacations. Five vacations in 13 years? That sucks. We're getting closer and closer to getting rid of the last of the two pesky kids - so we're thinking we can do more of this in years to come.

Since we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we thought we'd have an early dinner but that three hour nap threw us off schedule. If we had a schedule, that is. Over the years, we sort of accidentally created a pattern of always eating one meal on vacation in a TGIFridays. So that's where we ate dinner tonight - we had our choice of 4 in the Tampa area. I had a version of my standard pasta & chicken favorite kind of meal - Bruschetta Chicken & Pasta - that was outstanding. We were even good and didn't have dessert. Feels good to be satiated but not overfull.

We went for a nice walk around the hotel campus after dinner - it's mid-70s I think. Nice!

I have to go check the Hyatt website - thought for sure this hotel offered free wireless access in the rooms. It's not free as it turns out but I was willing to pay for it. I actually bought a month's subscription - it made the most sense financially. Besides some day trips, one of the things I really wanted to do on vacation was, as I mentioned, catch up on email. Catch up on my blog reading - I miss my friends! During the drive to find the Fridays, Steve and I realized how Internet-dependent we are. I want to see if there's an Ikea around here. We're going to go to either Epcot or Busch Gardens tomorrow so we'll check them out online first.

Vacation? So far so good! (And Simon remembered to feed the pets - my biggest concern. He's promised no parties and I believe him. Having said that, I've still asked Gretchen to swing by Saturday night and make sure things are nice and quiet.)

Vacations rock!

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